Genetics
by The Trojanhorse
Summary: Aragorn has some doubts about Eldarion. . .
1. Default Chapter

Genetics  
  
Apologetic note; I only remembered after I'd finished this that Gandalf sailed to Valinor. And I mangled a line from The Last Continent.  
  
Bells rang out across Minas Tirith. It was a day of jubilation, for Queen Evenstar had that morning (after three days of straining, threats against the life of the King Elessar, and many cries for epidurals) given birth to the next Heir of Isildur and King of Gondor. He was given the name Eldarion, and the city-dwellers rejoiced. (There was a lot of rejoicing in Minas Tirith in those days. They'd have rejoiced if she'd given birth to an orc. Any excuse for a booze-up)  
  
However, euphoric as Aragorn may have been on the day of Eldarion's birth, as the boy grew up, he began to be more suspicious. The kid was blonde, for a start. Aragorn found this slightly suspicious, given that his hair was brownish, and Arwen's was black, but he let it pass. It was the pointy ears that raised a few questions in his mind. He voiced them to Arwen one night as they readied themselves for bed in the grand, impressively decorated but nevertheless extremely cold and uncomfortably draughty stone bedroom. 'Dear?' 'Mmm?' 'About Eldarion. . .' 'Mmm?' Arwen was slightly distracted by her embroidery. Nonetheless Aragorn pushed on. 'Do his ears seem a little, um, pointy, to you?' Arwen transferred her attention from the embroidery to her husband. Aragorn quailed in his wife's glare. 'I'm an elf.' she said frostily. 'My ears are pointy. He's my son. His ears are pointy. It's called genetics, Aragorn.' 'Yes, but umm, I'm sort of part elf too, and my ears aren't pointy. . .' 'The elves in your family tree were a long way back. All your ancestors since then have been human. Therefore you have human shaped ears. Now shut up and go to sleep.' Aragorn turned over and soon dropped off to sleep. But his doubts continued to gnaw at him.  
  
As Eldarion grew up, the evidence accreting in Aragorn's mind formed painful lumps. There was the uncanny way the boy managed to master the basics (and the complicateds as well) of archery the first time he picked up a bow. There was the way he could climb trees. There was very definitely the way he could creep up on people, causing several minor heart-attacks amongst the palace lore-masters.  
  
In Eldarion's eighth year, Mithrandir had been invited back to Minas Tirith to celebrate his rebirth as Gandalf the White. A grand banquet had been planned, with an indoor firework display, courtesy of the wizard himself, expected confidently to outshine even the show given at Bilbo's Birthday Party.  
  
Gandalf readied the fireworks. He put aside one specially, running his fingers proudly over the label he'd made for it; a fiery whip, and two big horns. Something to commemorate his rebirth, definitely.  
  
Aragorn used this opportunity to borrow some of Gandalf's books and do some research. He snuck out of the banqueting hall before the fireworks began, and sat down to read. He learnt many things, the most damning of which were in a report on Elven pregnancies. Itym Onne. Thee tyme thee babe spendes in thee wombe is nigh three yeares. Itym Twoe. Forr moste of thee confinemente, thee Elfe-womann be right shapely stille. Onlye in thee laste nyne monthes doe thee babe show as inne a Morrtal conceptshun. Itym Three. In Elfes, blonde hayre is that coloure wych will showe above browne. . .  
  
A scream went up from the banqueting hall. Sword drawn, Aragorn ran towards the sound, cursing the twisting pathways of Minas Tirith. 'What kind of idiot designs a city around a rock?' he snarled as he thundered down the corridors. He burst in to the room in time to see Eldarion in the last stages of 'slaying' what looked like a firework Balrog. Aragorn stared for a moment, and then as the penny dropped and all the evidence clicked into place, he roared something incoherent and ran back out of the palace in a towering rage. He headed for the stable. 'Give me my horse!' he snapped at the stableboy. 'Wh . . . . Where are you bound, sir?' asked the trembling boy. 'Imladris' said Aragorn grimly.  
  
It all fit! Blonde. Pointy ears. Balrog slaying instinct. Rivendell. The right time period. Glorfindel. That smug bastard. 


	2. the chase

Arwen realised what must have happened shortly after she saw Aragorn storm out of the banqueting hall. Leaving Eldarion to the tender mercies of the guests who were clustering round to congratulate him, she rushed off after her errant husband as fast as her impractical shoes and long dress would allow.

She'd worked so hard to keep the secret from him! How could he have found out? She was sure she hadn't let anything slip. If Arwen had a fault (aside from her incurable addiction to mirrors) it was in her underestimation of Aragorn's intelligence. She simply had not expected that he would be able to work it out on his own.

Finally abandoning the shoes when the slope of the city got too steep for heels, she made much better progress, and actually caught up with the fuming Aragorn as he argued with the gate guard.

'Look you stupid sod, I'm the king! You can't just refuse to let me out of my own flaming city!'

'Sorry sir, but it's after sundown. You decreed that no-one was to leave the city after sundown.' The guard was sticking firmly to his orders, despite the fact that his own horse was backing away under Aragorn's wrath and so he was getting further and further away from the now shaking king.

'I am ORDERING you to let me out! Open the gates, you son of a Warg! Open them now!' The guard started sheepishly to obey.

'Aragorn, be sensible' said Arwen once she'd caught up with him. Her feet hurt. And her stockings were ruined.

'You!' Aragorn cried savagely, turning in the saddle to look at her.

'Aragorn, please. Come back inside. We'll talk about this-'

'You're not the one I want to talk to. And to think I thanked the bastard for taking Frodo off my hands. . .'

The clanking noises that were forcing him to raise his voice got even louder. The gates started to open. Without waiting for them to open fully Aragorn manoeuvred the horse through the widening gap and set off at a full gallop across the plain, not sparing a thought for the poor horse. Desperately, Arwen ordered the guard (it really wasn't his night) to give her his horse. Cowed under the pressure of both of his monarchs, the guard surrendered the frightened animal to Arwen and wandered off dazedly to find a pint.

Using the famous elvish ability to make animals biddable (sadly unused in this elf – she did not care for animal hair on her clothing) Arwen urged the horse onwards, chasing Aragorn. But he had a good head start, and she couldn't catch up, try as she might.

Two days solid riding, and eventually both horses gave up. Just lay down on the grass, and refused to rise again. Abandoning the horse, Aragorn walked determinedly onwards. Seeing this, (thanks only to the old elven eyesight. Anyone normal wouldn't have spotted the tiny figure trudging across the plains. Good thing I didn't decide to write about hobbits, eh) Arwen followed. When he stopped to rest, shortly before midnight, she kept on. Going without sleep was not such a great trial to one of the Firstborn. She was gaining on Aragorn. Unfortunately the dress she was wearing WAS a great trial to this scion of the Firstborn. She swore in unmaidenly ways as she minced through the grass. And then she swore even louder as one foot disappeared into a pothole. Pain shot through her legs. Unable to move properly in the tight dress, she could not hold herself up, and so she keeled over, ankle broken. There was only one thing left to do. She hated herself for it, but if she wanted to escape being eaten by Wargs, she would need some help . . .

'ARAGORN!' she yelled pitifully. 'Aragorn! Help!'

Aragorn heard her cries.

'Sod it.' he thought at first. 'Let her squeal for a bit.' Then he felt bad. 'Oh for Varda's sake.' he huffed. 'I'm COMING!' he yelled back, and turned around.

He found her, still stuck in the hole.

'I thought elves were graceful and elegant.' he said, extricating her from the burrow, or whatever it was. She glared at him. 'We are. Until someone puts a hidden pothole in the way.'

'Can you stand on it?'

'No.'

Aragorn sighed. 'Sit down.'

He pulled her leg onto his lap and strapped the ankle up with bits of her dress and his shirt.  'Your stockings are ripped.' he said gruffly after a few minutes.

'Yes, well, chasing your husband through the Pelennor to prevent him doing something stupid would have that effect.'

'Not gonna do something stupid' sulked Aragorn. 'Gonna go murder a lying elf.'

'Heir of Isildur you may be, but by holy Elbereth you are an idiot if ever I saw one.' said Arwen exasperatedly. 'Glorfindel is an elf prince. A powerful one. There is no way in Arda you could defeat him!'

Aragorn pulled away from his queen. He put her foot down gently, and then stood up. 'You be quiet! If you weren't so loose-moraled then we wouldn't be having this argument!'

'Loose-moraled? How dare yo-'

'How dare I? Arwen, you cheated on me! With GLORFINDEL, of all people! You don't call sleeping around behind your fiancé's back loose moraled?'

'You were away so long . . .' she mumbled, tables turned on her. Aragorn was in charge of this conversation now.

'I was saving the world!'

'You didn't have to take so long about it . . .'

'What the-? You are so unbalanced! I. Was. Saving. The. World. A little bit of patience would have been good!'

'Dad told me world would end. Didn't want to die a virgin' she muttered quickly.

'Every time we tried anything back in Imladris you told me to stop! If you were so keen on losing your virginity then why-'

'Didn't feel right with all the hobbits around.' Arwen was looking at her ravaged feet in embarrassment. 'Didn't want to corrupt them. . .'

'Corrupt them? Do you know what the hobbits were getting up to in that bedroom of theirs?'

'All right, don't rub it in. I'm sorry.'

'Pardon?'

'I'm sorry, ok? I've said it. Happy?'

'You think I'm going to forgive you on the strength of one grumpy 'sorry'?'

'Hey, don't get all uppity with me, mister! You spent an awful lot of time in Rohan. Don't think I don't know what those Rohirrim are like. Maybe you should be apologising to me' said Arwen, some of the old fire back in her manner. Aragorn put a hand briefly over his eyes. When he looked up his expression was pained, to say the least.

'You think I would cheat on you, the hottest elf in Middle Earth, with Éomer, who was the Third Marshal of the Mark, hadn't washed for about a year, and had-still has actually- a body odour problem to boot? You are even more paranoid than your father!'

Arwen looked abashed. She pouted. Aragorn melted.

'M'sorry.' she said, batting her eyelids at him.

'It's ok.' he said, pulling her into a bear hug. 'I guess we were all under a lot of strain. Go on, back to the city. I'll see you in a couple of months.'

Arwen, lulled into a false sense of security by the hug, stiffened.

'What?'

Aragorn let her go. 'Don't forget. I've still got that blonde bastard to deal with.' He suddenly ran off. Arwen hobbled a few steps after him, but he was gone.

She said a very unmaidenly word, and limped back towards Minas Tirith.


	3. chapter 3

**Genetics Part Three**

Sorry for the length of time between updates; writers block, other fics and university unfairly distracted me from this story. I never actually expected to write this, or the previous chapter; I originally intended the first one to be a one-shot. I was considerably surprised when I got reviews asking me when the next chapter was coming. Warning; yes, I consider this to be pretty OOC. Hopefully some comedy has managed to creep in and therefore redeem me. If not, then I am lost. I could go back to writing angsty slash but I never get reviews for that so assume it's no good, hence I write stuff like this.

Let us leave aside the journey of Aragorn to Imladris. Suffice it to say that it took several months and due to the fact that Aragorn had not even stopped to pack cooking gear, hunting gear, or a change of socks, he arrived at the Ford of Bruinen hungry, tired, and with killer blisters. None of which made him feel particularly charitable. He stormed towards Rivendell, still in a towering rage.

Had Glorfindel stayed inside that day, perhaps read a book, or participated in some singing, or finished his tapestry, things would probably have turned out differently. Instead, he decided to go for a ride.

Imagine his surprise when, close to the banks of the Bruinen, he was grabbed around the left ankle and yanked forcibly out of the saddle. The poor horse ran in terror of the unwashed, stubbly demon that had grabbed its rider.

'What the-' Glorfindel twisted violently in his captor's grip, and managed to get a glance at the vengeful face of . . . '_Aragorn_? Is that you? What in Varda's name are you _doing_?'

'_You_, you bastard!' growled Aragorn, hauling Glorfindel off into some undefined shrubbery (the botany of Imladris is a sadly under-researched subject. There _may_ have been athelas involved at some point though.)

'Me what? I asked you a question! And you're messing up my hair!'

'You slept with my wife!'

'She was hardly your wife at the time.' said Glorfindel calmly, which is rather impressive given that he was being hauled by his shiny blond ponytail through the undergrowth by a hairy man in a ballistic mood.

At this point Glorfindel decided he was fed up with this state of affairs, and dug his heels in. To Aragorn's chagrin he found that he couldn't go any further. It is hard to drag an elf when said elf has no wish to be dragged. They're stronger than they appear.

'Now look,' said the elf in question reasonably, detaching Aragorn's hand from his scalp by the simple expedient of digging his nails in between the tendons of the human's fingers. 'I'm being reasonable about this. Please explain yourself fully.'

'You slept with Arwen!'

'Once,' granted Glorfindel, looking smug. 'I think the miruvor and Elrond's 'I-am-supremely-paranoid-about-the-state-of-Arda' speech may have helped though. What's the problem?'

'Apart from the fact that she's my bloody wife and you bloody slept with her-'

'She was your girlfriend at the time, and you'd just run off to play the hero with a bunch of assorteds, including Legolas of Mirkwood, who I am sorry to say is not the most heterosexual of the Firstborn, and very obviously had his eye on you. I think you can probably forgive her for doubting your powers of fidelity.'

Aragorn had a slight brain-fuse at the idea that Legolas 'had his eye' on him, but recovered well.

'I thought Elves didn't have affairs – the whole 'sex being marriage' rule,' he managed.

Glorfindel looked at him slightly pityingly; the way a marine biologist looks at someone who voices the opinion that dolphins are fish. 'It's not a _rule_ as such. More like a guideline, if you ask me. Besides; she was convinced the world was going to end. That tends to speed up one's libido.'

About to reply, Aragorn suddenly noticed Glorfindel cock his head at something. The human strained his ears to hear. It didn't require an awful lot of straining, actually. The clanking was reasonably audible.

'Yrch,' said Glorfindel quietly. Aragorn nodded. The elf started to crawl away from the sound. He beckoned to Aragorn over his shoulder. Aragorn followed; time enough to feud later; preferably when their lives weren't on the line.

'They're on the other side of the river,' hissed Glorfindel when he judged they'd got enough distance between them and the orcs.

'Do you know how to raise the waters?' asked Aragorn, his mind running through possibilities.

'No; only Elrond knows how to do that,' said Glorfindel, his eyes narrowing. He too was calculating.

'How many of them do you think there are?'

'A decent number, going by the noise and by the fact that they're here; you don't expect a lone orc to come prancing up to Rivendell,' said Glorfindel. 'It'd be suicide.'

'Could we take them on ourselves?'

'We could try. Only . . .'

'What?'

'Didn't bring any weapons.' Glorfindel blushed, pink as one of Sam's carnations.

'What, none?' Aragorn was flabbergasted. He took weapons with him as a matter of course, whether it was to water the garden or retake the southern bank of the Anduin; the exact details really didn't matter. Edged weaponry goes with everything. Well, goes _through_ everything, at least.

'Maybe a knife?'

' . . . ' Aragorn couldn't begin to understand this.

'Look, I was going for a ride. I didn't expect to be faced with a regiment of orcs!'

Aragorn grunted, and bent down. He rolled up a trouser-leg.

'Ticks?' asked Glorfindel with some measure of sympathy. 'They can be murder round here-'

Aragorn straightened up, a long dagger in his hand. It was sheathed; it looked like he'd had it strapped around his calf. He handed it to the elf.

'Come on then,' he said, getting up off his haunches and wandering off into the forest. He blended very well. Rangers are the ultimate blenders. Elves are technically better at it, when they want to be, but they prefer to be noticed; they like it when people say things like 'wow; look how hard it is to see him! He's so stealthy!' and 'yeah, it's hard to spot him all right.'

Sighing, Glorfindel followed Aragorn.

The orcs certainly were loud. And close.

The elf caught sight of hairy, unwashed orc bodies through the trees. There was much equipment of a sharp and unfriendly nature hanging around also. At about this time, the _smell_ of hairy, unwashed orc bodies assaulted Glorfindel's delicate elven senses, and thus he was less than coherent when Aragorn stalked back through the trees in search of him.

'Come on,' said the human, looking irritated. 'I thought you were supposed to be good at this sneaking business.'

Glorfindel went bright red (always entertaining on someone pale blonde) and choked pointedly, waving a hand in front of his nose. Aragorn took a deep sniff.

'And?' he said, after apparently having savoured the smell of orc. 'It's not that bad, you pansy.'

Glorfindel managed to pull himself together again, and they advanced cautiously.

Shifting through the trees, they attempted an estimate of exactly how many orcs there were.

'I make it ninety-odd,' said Aragorn.

'That tallies with my count,' said Glorfindel. 'Still, the main question is; 'how in graceful Elbereth's name did ninety heavily armed orcs make it this close to Imladris?''

'Face it,' said Aragorn heavily. 'Since the whole . . . jewellery incident, we've all been slightly lax. I mean, once we'd all dealt with the threat on our immediate doorsteps, we sort of . . . '

'Had a bit of a rest?'

'Precisely. It can't have been that hard for them to make it up here; if they came from the south then, hmm, say they made it through or past Rohan; not difficult considering the sparse population, and it's not like the distance between Rohan and Imladris is exactly swarming with people either . . . '

'Well,' said the elf. 'Much as I hate to be the practical one here, musing on how they got here is not getting rid of them, is it?'

'No.'

'Can we handle ninety orcs?'

Aragorn rolled his eyes. 'You once out-fought, or at least out-ran the Nine. Not to mention the many glorious brawls you've taken part in over the millennia. And, oh, how could we forget? The balrog incident. And I've been fighting orcs most of my abnormally long, Numenorian life.' The human snorted. 'What was your question again?'

Glorfindel shook his head slightly disbelievingly. He'd forgotten, insulated as he was by the community of elves he lived in, how direct humans were. And how _modest_.

'So, is this a run-in-and-slaughter scenario or more of a pick-them-off-one-at-a-time thing?' he asked. Aragorn shrugged.

'We have no bows, so picking them off would require that we stalk and catch each one silently. Difficult. No,' and here he grinned. 'I think we'll have to go with the direct approach.'

Glorfindel sighed again. He was less than keen on the direct approach, especially where it applied to charging ninety unwashed orcs with only the obviously suicidal King of Gondor at your side, and when armed with only said King of Gondor's dagger, unearthed from the depths of his smelly trouser-legs.

Aragorn leapt through the underbrush, screaming at the top of his lungs.

'Anduril! Anduril for Gondor!' he cried, landing smack-bang in the midst of a group of very surprised orcs, who had apparently stopped for whatever the orcish equivalent of a smoko was.

Glorfindel joined him shortly afterwards.

'I hardly feel it's sporting to attack them when their weapons are in a pile against a tree and the most threatening thing they've got is a sandwich. At least I think it was a sandwich . . . '

'It was an _orc_ sandwich, Glorfindel. Hardly the sort of thing someone eats when they're just off for a picnic. Cannibalism doesn't smack of peaceful intentions. I think in the circumstances we were quite justified in not being 'sporting'.'

'But they obviously had to undergo untold hardships to get here if they were forced to eat each other. I'd rather eat almost anything rather than orc.'

'Balrog shite?'

'There's no need to be crude. Honestly; who raised you? An Uruk-hai?'

'Actually, it was Elrond . . . '

'Never mind.'

To be continued . . .

Will Aragorn recover from the testosterone overload and remember why he hunted Glorfindel down in the first place? (maybe . . .)

Will Glorfindel break a nail? (stay tuned to find out!)

Will Elrond find out that Aragorn's been a discredit to his upbringing? (on reflection; probably not)

Will the author get flamed for the insane OOCness in this fic? (no flames so far, let's see if we can keep this streak going!)

Will there be another update sometime before the New Year? (hopefully)

And to all who reviewed; I love you all. Reviewers are gods. Hannon le.

PS: Ninety orcs? Pfff. Anyone who doubts that Aragorn and Glorfindel could take on ninety orcs and win, I refer you to, well, um quite a lot of places, but if you're a book lover; the Battle of Helm's Deep, Pg 528 in the one-volume Lord of The Rings, where Aragorn and Théoden, leading the remnants of their army, ride out in a last desperate charge and "Captains and champions fell or fled before them. Neither orc nor man withstood them." And if you're a movie-watcher instead (and if you are; read the books!); I have two words for you; Amon Hen. (for the completely Tolkien-illiterate; last big battle scene in FOTR)

I'm not sure if this fic is movie-verse or book-verse. Probably book-verse considering Glorfindel saved Frodo, actually, now that I think about it.


	4. Epilogue

Genetics; Epilogue Jill Collins Normal Jill Collins 5 11 2004-12-15T19:34:00Z 2004-12-17T07:26:00Z 1 691 3939 Systems Are Go 32 9 4621 10.2625 Clean Clean 6 pt 2 2 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 

Favorite : Story  Author    Follow : Story  Author 

Login

  * [FanFiction][1]
  * [FictionPress][1]
  * [Google][1]
  * [Facebook][1]
  * [Twitter][1]

Post Review

* * *

Report Abuse Add Story to Community  Go  .  

Share

  * [Google+][2]
  * [Twitter][3]
  * [Tumblr][4]
  * [Facebook][5]

  .  Follow/Favorite

+ Follow 

* * *

Story  Writer 
+ Favorite 

* * *

Story  Writer 

Working... Close Save

   [1]: #
   [2]: https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fanfiction.net%2Fs%2F1789994%2F4%2F
   [3]: http://twitter.com/home?status=Reading+story%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fanfiction.net%2Fs%2F1789994%2F4%2F
   [4]: http://www.tumblr.com/share/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fanfiction.net%2Fs%2F1789994%2F4%2F
   [5]: http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fanfiction.net%2Fs%2F1789994%2F4%2F



End file.
